


Pillows are the Best Medicine

by Synapse



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Airplane Crashes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fix-It, Hospitalization, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Phoenix Nest Discord, Slow Burn, their lives aren't as messed up as they could've been
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-09 11:59:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19887358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synapse/pseuds/Synapse
Summary: Hera Syndulla is an expert pilot in the making, and as a police officer she's nearly impossible to beat. Therefore, when a disastrous crash lands her in the hospital for weeks on end, her friends know she needs to be back on her feet as soon as possible. Their help, however, is anything but conventional.Ever since his adopted mother spent months in the hospital and he was informally adopted by the staff, Kanan wanted to be a nurse. Now, several years in, he's helped more patients than he can count. But there's something special about his newest charge- and it's not just all the crazy pillows her friends insist on giving her.---Inspired by this Pin from Tumblr: https://pin.it/bme6u5hodnngu4------CANCELED for now, until I can write a more accurate and better researched fic about hospitals.





	1. The Fear of Falling Apart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "This Is Gospel" by Panic! At the Disco.  
> Love playlists? Here's the one I'm constructing for this fic! https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6ru3loGeVQOZW74hVgEFM5

It's a beautiful day for flying.

The skies are the clearest they've been in the last two weeks, and beneath her, the massive golden plains of Lothal and its surrounding suburbs sprawl, the gentle breeze sending ripples across it as if it were some vast ocean. Hera takes in a deep breath, and looks out the windshield. The sky spreads out before her, the great blue of the heavens inviting her to spread her wings a little farther, rise a little higher.

She does neither- she's training today, and the _Phantom_ isn't built to go much higher. The small plane is sturdily built and relatively new, but she's not willing to press its limits quite yet. Hera's only had her for a year. There's no point in causing unnecessary damage by straining the little plane.

The radio crackles in her ear, and she tugs her headwrap out of the way of her headset and sunglasses. Time to turn around.

The plane responds beautifully to her light touch on the controls, and she banks to the right, bringing the plane around in a graceful arc. Far off, she can see other little planes from the airfield. There's the bold reds and browns splashed among the greys of Han Solo's _Millennium Falcon_ , an old bird with many years under its belt. Meanwhile, bright hues of green and orange mark Wedge Antilles’s small plane from the flock. Both Wedge and his plane are the very opposite of Solo when it comes to experience. Hera's been helping him earn his pilot's license while she works on her own hours. He, however, aims to find his profession in the skies as a tour guide, or possibly a display pilot. Her goal- to become one of the members of the local law enforcement's fleet- is very different from his.

She's looking to the side of the plane, checking beneath her, when she hears the panicked shouts over the radio. It takes a long moment for Hera to realize what they're saying through the static. Then it comes through.

" _Drones!_ "

Her head snaps up. _What?_ flickers through her mind, followed up sharply by, _Who the hell could be stupid enough to fly drones in an airspace?_

But the shouts on the radio don't lie, and even as she takes a deep breath to steady herself (no need to panic, she's in one of the most maneuverable planes out here, there's no way she could be hit) she sees the first one.

It's a small thing in comparison to the planes. The one she sees is bright blue, almost as if to match the sky- in fact, Hera thinks, it's so well done it could almost be intentional.

That's her first impression. The second is that it's very, very close- and that it's heading straight for her.

She doesn't let herself panic (she's a police officer, for gods’ sake, and good officers don't panic at the first sign of danger). Instead she shoves down the rising cry of worry inside her and banks again, a little more sharply this time. The _Phantom_ answers her call, and they go sailing away from the drone.

Hera doesn't see the second drone until it's too late.

"Phantom _, on your left!_ " someone yells over the radio. It's a useless effort. She's trapped. Before she can even begin to figure out what to do next there's a horrific crash from the _Phantom'_ s left wing.

She has enough time to think, _that can't be good,_ before the plane begins to list.

" _Coming in on your right!_ " Hera only half-listens, more focused on figuring out how to avoid the drone that's still hovering on her right and keep the plane steady at the same time. Green and orange swoop past her, but the control tower and Han begin to shriek at the same time on the radio, warning Wedge away. She herself can't dedicate attention to her colleague's attempts at a rescue. The drone comes closer, closer, closer-

Dumbfounded, she has just enough time to catch a glimpse of the sky blue robot before-

_Pch-krrrra-!_

-her right wing is torn straight through.

Now it's all she can do to pull at the controls. _This lever, watch your altitude, hit the brakes, you're going to fall you're going to fall-_

A squawking cry from the radio." _Slow your momentum, Syndulla!_ "

Beneath her there's a copse of trees- spruces, maybe. She's been trying to avoid it the entire descent, trying to level the _Phantom_ out in a glide. She can make an emergency landing like this, she _knows_ she can, she's the best pilot in this airfield-! But the plane is angled sideways and refusing to respond, and it's all she can do to keep it aloft.

Then there's a third crash, sickening as the crunch of bones, from the bottom of the plane.

Someone yells," _How many of these things are there?_ "

 _No landing gear,_ she realizes a split second later. Then: _I'm going to die_.

At the though a prickle of shame runs through her. _Hell no!_ she snaps at herself. _I am not dying to a few_ drones _!_

The trees come into view. It's all she can do to keep the plane steady as the tops brush the base of the _Phantom_. Cats are screaming from the bottom, a horrific, deafening sound of branches on metal. The end of the copse comes into view. Grass waves at her, and as she hits the brake and hopes desperately for a miracle, there's a cry in her ear-

" _Hera!_ "

A jolt snaps through her body. Pain follows, ringing dull, then blazing fires. They consume her, turn her vision scarlet, and as the darkness closes in she can do nothing more than thank the gods that it comes so quickly.

\- • - • - • -

Her first impression is red.

It's not the scarlet that had consumed her vision before the darkness took her. It is, rather, deep crimson. She knows it well from her investigations into murders and shootings: bloodred.

Her second impression is _pain_.

Every inch of her is flaring with it, pricking needle-pain, sharp-edged dagger stabbing pain, dull roaring-aching pain. Hera moves to wipe the blood from her eyes. All she gets in answer is the dagger pain. Then, when she goes to gasp, more daggers- this time in the chest.

Hera's third impression is noise.

There's a roar overhead, the sputtering of engines (hers? she wonders- if the _Phantom_ 's halfway in the ground how can it be hers...?). Closer- the dying whine of the radio. Farther- shouts.

Scarlet fog clouds her brain again, and she leans back. Darkness tinges her vision. But she's not dead yet, and she'll be damned if she dies like this.

She tries the other arm, the one that didn't stab with pain. This one responds a little better, and she manages to maneuver it to wipe at the blood in her eyes. It improves her vision only minutely, but it’s enough.

The _Phantom_ is crushed around her. There's no crackle of flames, which is good, but she's positioned sideways and her hurting arm is pinned beneath her, which is bad. Twisted metal blocks her view, and when she tries to grab some to pull herself up the edge slices at her fingers. Another gasp reminds her of the stabbing pain in her torso. _Broken ribs at least_ , she thinks through the fog in her brain.

Then there's someone pulling aside the metal, someone in a dark brown suit, and more people crowding around them.

"Hera!" someone's yelling. "Hera Syndulla! Can you hear us?"

 _I can hear you!_ she wants to shout. _I'm here! I'm alive!_ But when she draws a breath, searing pain streaks through her. Her vision flickers, and a pained moan escapes her lips instead.

It's enough, apparently, and as they pull aside metal she hears them yelling. "How bad is it?" comes one shout. "There's blood down her face!" another cries. "Her leg," someone gasps (Wedge? But how is he here-?).

But the resounding cry, the cry that comes above them all, is the one she herself could not bring her body to vocalize: "She's alive! Syndulla's _alive!_ "

They dig her out of the rubble. Layers of metal are pulled aside in what feels like seconds- or is it hours?- and then, finally, someone kneels beside her.

"Can you hear me?" they ask her frantically, and she nods (good, she can still do that). "Good. Can you talk?"

She shakes her head, and flails her good arm to indicate her chest.

"Lungs," a voice says. 

"She's trapped," says another. Someone puts an oxygen mask to her face, and she breathes in gratefully, then regrets it when her ribs add a new chord to the chorus of pain ringing inside her.

"We're going to lift the metal pinning your leg," the same voice from earlier eventually says. She blinks. Her leg is pinned?

Then the pain rises and crests in a shocking scarlet wave. The chilling fire of it steals her breath away, and the darkness rises for the second time that day, its raven black wings engulfing her in gentle nothingness.

" _Stay with me!_ " someone pleads.

 _I'm sorry,_ Hera thinks, and knows nothing more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be my first ever fic longer than a oneshot. I'm excited! (But also a little bit scared.) I'm posting this first chapter before I leave for two weeks, so that when I come back I'll actually have to continue writing and posting this. (Managing commitment issues, yay!) Keep an eye out for the second chapter in about a month! I've marked a number of chapters for this fic, but please note that it's subject to change, as is this chapter, which may be edited later on for continuity's sake.
> 
> Here's a big thank you to the Phoenix Nest Discord, who've been helping me figure out just how I'm supposed to write a fic and manage the details of this one. Thanks, you guys, you're awesome!
> 
> And last but definitely not least: a huge thank you to [stardustgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustgirl) for beta'ing this chapter!


	2. ANNOUNCEMENT

**Okay, so here's an announcement:**

**I've been doing a little more research after writing a mess of a second chapter, and realized that I have nowhere near the amount of knowledge I would need to write this fic. Hospitals are, as it turns out, even more complex than I originally thought- and I knew from the start what I was looking at was difficult. I just don't have the skills to write something like this at this point in time. The sheer amount of research alone would be nigh impossible for me, given I've never had to do a lick of research for a fic ever. I would much rather not post the fic at all than write something very poorly researched with little base in reality that would have anyone who's ever spent time in a hospital tearing their hair out in exasperation- or give someone who hasn't spent time in a hospital a false idea of what it would be like.**

**So, for the moment, I'm shelving this fic, before I dig myself into a deeper hole. However, I have numerous smaller and/or easier concepts sitting in my Docs as of the moment, so chances are I'll pick one or two and start working my way through those. I'll leave this up- for now, at least- since it was a fun bit of writing to do and I do want to come back to it someday. When I have the skills to, I might consider it. But if I find, in six months or a year's time, that I'm no longer interested in this idea, I may take it down. If I still want to do it, I'll leave it where it's at, and hopefully, during that time, I'll learn the skills I need to complete a more complex piece like this one.**

**Anyway, that aside, my thanks to anyone who read chapter one, and to the awesome people who left kudos or comments! I'll be posting more content, don't worry- but hopefully it'll be stuff I can write about knowledgeably and respectfully.**


End file.
